Metropolis: 10 Things The Superman Prequel Must Include

7. References To The Golden Age

Lois Lane DC The New Frontier
DC Comics/Darwyn Cooke

With Gotham having a tendency to get carried away, mostly on account of its determination to cram every Bat-villain from A-Z, Metropolis needs to have a think about the approach it'll take to world-building.

One option, and it's one we've seen debut to acclaim in Black Lightning, would be to root the show in a linear timeline. Avoid Supes altogether, certainly, but remember that the book didn't begin with Clark Kent. In classic DC continuity, the Justice Society of America were the first real superhero team around, with characters like Doctor Fate, Jay Garrick's Flash and Ted Grant's Wildcat dominating headlines as the world's precursor to the Justice League.

Not only does this make the world feel lived in, but less contrived as well. Contextualising Lois' misadventures in a world already known for super-drama makes sense, but having everything bubble up out of thin-air would, like Gotham, feel a little forced, if not entirely cynical altogether.

Make the world feel storied, and Metropolis will be able to get away with ten times the stuff Gotham has.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.